Storm cleanup cost city about $300,000

With flags flapping loudly as the wind picked up outside City Hall Tuesday evening, the Spokane Valley City Council wrote a nearly $300,000 check to cover the cost of cleanup after the November windstorm.

Last week, City Manager Mike Jackson explained to the council that downed trees were removed from 95 locations at a cost of $108,436.

“And we are still finding leaning trees,” Jackson said.

On the night of the storm, 30 of 88 Spokane Valley traffic signals stopped working and some were damaged. Repairing those cost around $11,000, Jackson said.

There are more than 20,000 street signs in Spokane Valley and somewhere between 200 and 250 were damaged during the storm.

Jackson said all damaged essential signs, such as stop signs and school zone signs, have been replaced at a cost of $5,000.

The Spokane Valley Parks Department lost 35 to 40 large trees in five parks, and Jackson said it’s expected cost around $165,000 to remove the downed trees and repair the craters their root balls left behind.

Sunshine Disposal took in all sizes of tree debris at the lower rate usually charged for “clean green” and processed 521 tons of organic material.

“It was a great help,” Jackson said. The special allocation passed unanimously.

The funds will initially come from the winter cleanup account. Any insurance or FEMA funds that may come in later will go toward covering the expense.

Late in the meeting, Jackson suggested the city make another $50,000 allocation to help agencies like SNAP and the Red Cross recover financially after the storm emergency.

“We had a great network of organizations that helped us through the storm,” Jackson said.

Jackson said organizations would be asked to document their storm related expenses, and that a budget of $50,000 is within the discretion of the city manager.

Council member Ben Wick suggested that $100,000 would be more appropriate and should be allocated in the future.

“Perhaps we could respond a bit quicker with that,” Wick said.

Jackson said that would be up to the council’s discretion, but that $50,000 is a sum that can be managed right now and it should be seen as a response to the storm – not as a new program.

The council unanimously agreed that Jackson could go ahead and start the process.